The “ Yulanpen Sutra”（盂蘭盆經）contains the story of Maudgalyāyana（目連）saving his mother who felt into “hungry ghost realm”. Yulanpen has become a national festival in China, and it is still a festival culture that the Chinese community nowadays attaches great importance to. There are two main reasons for “Yulanpen festival”（盂蘭盆節）, a foreign culture, can be accepted and popularized in China. First reason is the story axis of “Maudgalyāyana（目連）saving his mother” is filial piety and repaying kindness, which fits the Confucian filial piety and traditional sacrificial culture in Chinese. Second reason should be related to the cultural of “ghost and god belief ” with a long history in China. These two reasons let“Yulanpen festival” established a strong position of faith in China. With the continued interpretation of the story “Maudgalyāyana saving his mother”, the plot of the characters in the story has been modified a lot. Until the localization of Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty was completed, the story was spread widely to the Chinese people through “narrative literatures”（變文）and “secular story telling”（俗講）. Consequently, the image of Maudgalyāyana, a monk, as a filial son with magnificent power saving his mother is deeply imprinted in the hearts of the Chinese people. After the post-tantric rituals of “flame mouth giving food”（燄口施食）were introduced in to China, the belief in Vijayī（尊勝）, ten kings of Kṣitigarbha-bodhisattva（地藏菩薩）, and the “Parent's Grace Sutra”（父母恩重經）became popular one after another. When the local Confucianism and Taoism were integrated with the Maudgalyāyana’s story , It makes the Yulanpen ceremony different from the Indian Buddhist ceremony, drove the prevalence of the rituals of giving, recommending deathand pursuing blessings in China. This article intends to take the “secular story telling”（俗講）flourished in the Tang’s Buddhism, and the “Mulian Bianwen”（目連變文）in Dunhuang literature as the object of investigation. I try to explore the “Yulanpen festival” that was popular in China from the perspective of “salvation”, which is less concerned by the contemporary academic. The related topics discussed in this paper are: 1.The main axis of the story of “saving the mother” may change the Confucian filial piety centered on father, by emphasizing on the concept “mother's kindness is hard to repay, but should be repaid” , and promote people's recognition of the long repressed role of mother in China; 2. Using Weber's classification of salvation, explore the difference between the salvation conditions contained in the story and the Buddhist concept of liberation; 3. The ultimate concern of Buddhist life contained in Yulanpen festival.
